Jail Term Trimmed For Former Judge

August 03, 1988|By John Gorman.

Former Cook County Circuit Court Judge Reginald Holzer was resentenced to 13 years in prison Tuesday by a federal judge who turned aside pleas for a lighter sentence.

Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Prentice Marshall told Holzer that his conduct inflicted injury not just on the county circuit courts where he presided, but ``on the system as a whole.`` Marshall said Holzer and the other judges convicted as a result of the federal Operation Greylord investigation

``virtually destroyed the third branch of government in Cook County.``

The new sentence is five years less than the 18-year prison term imposed on Holzer in 1986, before part of his conviction was overturned.

Holzer was convicted on mail fraud, rackteering and extortion charges resulting from the Greylord investigation. He was accused of using his position to extract more than $200,000 in personal loans from lawyers and others who appeared before him.

But, Holzer`s mail fraud and racketeering convictions were vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals after the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the interpretation of the mail fraud statute. The Appeals Court then ordered Marshall to resentence Holzer on the three extortion charges.

During a sentencing hearing Monday, Holzer`s lawyer, Edward Foote, told Marshall that Holzer has become a ``new person`` and asked Marshall to impose a significantly lighter sentence because 23 of the counts on which Holzer was convicted were mail fraud charges.

Marshall said Tuesday that he was reducing the original sentence by five years to reflect the elimination of the mail fraud counts.

The judge said the racketeering charge was used by prosecutors as an

``umbrella`` under which the other charges were gathered and did not figure into his original sentence. Prosecutors had dropped the racketeering charge in June.

Marshall acknowledged that prosecutors had built much of their case on the mail fraud charges, but said they did so because many witnesses who testified about the mail fraud counts were those with whom a jury could readily empathize.

``So Mr. Foote is right. We do have a different legal situation,``

Marshall said. But, he said, ``The extortion behavior is what we focused on early in the trial . . . and the pattern of extortion did not change. . . . Transactions of a disturbingly similar pattern permeate Mr. Holzer`s career.``

Marshall said the mail fraud evidence ``demonstrated the effect it had on people who went to court for a fair determination.``

``I attributed five years to mail fraud,`` Marshall said, so under the Supreme Court ruling Holzer was ``entitled to have five years removed.``

Howard Pearl, an assistant U.S. attorney, had argued Monday that Marshall`s reasons for imposing the lengthy sentence two years ago were still valid.

``Nothing about (the Supreme Court case) detracts from the fact that he corruptly used his office. . . . That was the rationale for the 18 years and remains the basis (for another 18-year sentence),`` Pearl said.

Holzer declined comment outside the courtroom afterwards. He is due to report back to the federal prison in Oxford, Wis., at noon Wednesday.

Shortly after the Supreme Court decision last year, the Appeals Court here ordered Marshall to resentence Holzer on the extortion charges because the judges believed Marshall may have taken the mail fraud and racketeering convictions into account when he imposed the 18-year sentence. The appeals court let stand Holzer`s conviction for extortion.

In vacating the mail fraud conviction, the Appeals Court cited the controversial decision last year by the Supreme Court, which radically narrowed application of the federal mail fraud statute-a tool widely used by prosecutors in public corruption cases.

The high court decision restricted use of the mail fraud statute to fraudulent schemes involving money or property. It set aside a theory frequently used by prosecutors to charge a public official with mail fraud in schemes to defraud citizens of their rights to honest and impartial government.

The 18-year prison sentence was the longest imposed so far in the Greylord investigation, which has resulted in the conviction of more than 60 people, including former judges, lawyers and other court personnel.